Emerging strategic industries play a critical role in assisting nations in developing new quality productive forces and creating new catalysts for economic growth. This paper uses the emerging strategic industrial cluster construction as an exogenous shock to examine its causal impact on labor employment. Using data from Chinese listed enterprises from 2015 to 2022 as research samples, this paper shows that emerging strategic industrial clusters can increase labor employment by approximately 5.3%. Easing corporate financing constraints and promoting innovation are the mechanisms of labor employment. Furthermore, this paper finds that the effect of industrial clusters on labor employment is more significant for enterprises in vital industries related to national economy, as well as for enterprises has substantial financial limitations. After using several robust methods such as random inference, Oster test to alleviate the endogenous bias, the basic results still hold. Lastly, this paper finds industrial clusters mainly facilitate the employment of high-skilled labor. This paper reveals the mechanism of the emerging strategic industrial cluster affecting labor employment, offering insights into accelerating the cultivation of new quality productivity, ensuring employment, and improving people’s livelihood.